Disclaimer: The usual stuff, promises of no copyright infringement intended, you know it by heart.

Author's Notes: Thank you to everyone still reading;) I hope you're enjoying it. Also, I forgot to put this in awhile back. All of my information about Vulcans and snipets of the language come from a terrific site called "All Things Vulcan", who in turn get some of their information from the official Starfleet Medical Handbook. Just had to give them their props;) Thanks and happy reading.

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Firecracker
by Kristen Elizabeth

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"I'm coming with you."

Isabella glanced over her bare shoulder as she fastened the hooks of her peach-colored bra. "While I appreciate the offer, I can't see how that's gonna make anythin' better."

"I don't know. It probably won't." Jonathan stood up from the bed. "But I have to do something. Trip's my best friend in this world. And now..." He shook his head. "I wouldn't blame him if he took a swing at me. Several swings."

"My intention was never to come between ya'll." Suddenly somber, Isabella stopped with only two hooks done up.

He watched her carefully, pulling on a pair of dark pants at the same time. "What have your intentions been, Isabella? That's one thing I can't figure out in all of this."

"I like ya," she replied in a soft voice. "Isn't that enough?"

Jonathan opened his mouth to reply, but the comm panel beat him to the punch. "Reed to Archer."

After a half-second's pause, he sighed and moved to answer it. "Archer here. Go ahead, Malcolm."

"Sir, I think you should come to the bridge as soon as possible."

The Captain nodded, as though his armory officer could see him. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Archer out." He flipped off the comm and looked back at Isabella. Sitting on the edge of his bed in her little girl lace and sexpot satin, her full lower lip trembled slightly as she gazed back at him. "Isabella..."

"Yes?" Her gentle prompting came after a painful, long moment of silence.

Jonathan walked back towards her. Kneeling down to her level, he cupped her cheek. "You're so young." With a sigh of self-disgust, he reached for the shirt he had worn to dinner, breaking the moment. "I'm sorry you have to deal with Trip by yourself. Just remember..."

She cut him off, brushing a tear away before it could even fall. "His bark is worse than his bite. Yeah. I know."

After slipping into his shoes, the Captain left his cabin, and the woman in it, and headed straight for the bridge. The heavy paperweight of guilt sat directly on his chest, threatening to crush his lungs with each struggle for breath. The call to the bridge had been all too perfectly timed; facing Trip ten minutes after being caught in bed with his little sister would have only ended in pain. Specifically, his own.

Given time, Trip would cool off and they could settle things more efficiently, hopefully being able to salvage their friendship. Hopefully.

****

T'Pol glanced back and forth between the oldest Tucker offspring and the youngest. In the five minutes since Isabella had bravely appeared at the door, brother and sister had yet to speak a word. Each seemed determined to hold out the longest in a show of Human pride and stubbornness. It was intensely frustrating.

Had she a sibling of her own, T'Pol could not imagine that she would take such an active interest in his or her private affairs. But then, no Vulcan would ever behave as Isabella had, except perhaps in Pon Farr, when one was not responsible for their actions. She understood Trip's anger as a representative of Starfleet, but was still searching to understand his anger as an older brother.

She had the vague thought that perhaps negotiations would fare better if she left, but made no motion to do so. It was only another minute of patient waiting before Trip finally gave in and spoke.

"How could ya do it, Izzy?"

"Oh...just 'bout the same way it's usually done, Charlie." Isabella gestured to T'Pol. "Ye've obviously figured it all out."

Trip's face turned an interesting shade of red. "Are ya on some kinda mission to give me a coronary?! Ya know damn well what I meant!"

"I don't even know why I'm here. I don't owe ya any explanation."

"The hell ya don't!" He grabbed her arm with careful force. "Damnit, Izzy! Don't ya get what ye've done?"

She swallowed. "I haven't done anythin' I haven't done before, Charlie. Only two things're different here. One...ya know 'bout it. And two..."

"Yer sleepin' with my best friend!" His fingers unconsciously dug into her soft flesh. "Who just happens to be superior officer to both of us! Jesus, Izzy..." He released her. "Ya really don't get how major this is, do ya?"

"Maybe yer gonna have to spell it out for me, big brother."

He stared into his own eyes for a long time, but scarcely recognized the young woman attached to them. His Izzy, his baby sister, was not the defiant, daring disaster in front of him. "I'll spell it out for ya, all right." Licking his lips, he glanced over at his lover. "T'Pol, what's Starfleet's position on fraternization?"

"Starfleet regulations prohibit it," she supplied. "As do most known military and scientific institutions throughout the galaxy."

Isabella's lip curled up. "Thank ya, Ms. Textbook...who happens to be doin' a little fraternizin' herself." She shot a significant look to the bed with its rumpled covers. "'Less of course that baby is some kinda 'mmaculate conception."

Trip ran his hands through his hair, quite ready to pull it all out in the heat of the moment. "This isn't 'bout us, Izzy. 'Sides...me and T'Pol have pretty much the same rank." He let his arms fall to his sides. "Not like an ensign and a capt'n."

"I think what goes on in the capt'n's bedroom should be his business only."

"An hour ago, I might've agreed with ya." Her brother rubbed his aching temple. "Izzy..." He stopped, suddenly running out of energy. "Ye've let down our whole family tonight. Momma would have yer hide if she..."

She rolled her eyes. "Please. Momma loves Jonathan; she'd be thrilled if I brought him home 'stead of you."

"So...what's that mean? Ya love him?"

A second passed. "Sometimes....sex is just sex," Isabella finally replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Love just sugar-coats somethin' fun to do when yer bored."

Trip shook his head. "That's all ya can say? Yer bored? Ye've put yer career in jeopardy, not to mention what it might do to the Capt'n if word of this ever got back to Starfleet. Ye've let me down...ye've embarrassed yerself in front of T'Pol and..."

"It always comes back to her, doesn't it?" Isabella's eyes narrowed into dangerously thin slits. "Ya just can't have one damn conversation without talkin' 'bout her, can ya? I'm so sick of it!!" Her fists balled up. "I'm so sick of her! If it weren't for her, ya'd understand why..." She stopped, tears springing up out of nowhere. "If ya could, ya'd probably get off on this, right, Subcommander? He's on yer side, totally, after all. All against his real family. The ones who can actually love him."

T'Pol unfolded her arms. "The only one competing between the two of us is you."

The girl's blonde curls bounced furiously as she swung her head from side to side. "It's never been a fair fight, is all. I never had a chance."

"You declared war on me a long time before you stepped foot on Enterprise," the Vulcan continued. "But I have never wanted to do battle at all, Isabella."

"Highly illogical, right?" Her tears flowed down her smooth cheeks in a steady stream.

T'Pol glanced at Trip; his eyes were red as he waged his own battle with his emotions. "The least of all reasons has been logic."

"Archer to T'Pol."

The Captain's voice over the comm cut through their conversation like a hack-saw. The Vulcan woman reached for the cabin's panel. "This is T'Pol."

"You're needed on the bridge right away." There was a pause. "Trip...you too."

Scowling, Trip crossed his arms over his grey cotton shirt. "Yeah. We'll be there when we get there." He strode across the room and turned off the comm.

"Ya shouldn't be mad at Jonathan," Isabella told her brother with quiet conviction. "He feels guilty enough as it is."

"And he damn well should." The Enterprise's engineer turned to his Vulcan lover. "Go ahead and see what's goin' on. I'll catch up." She nodded in her cool way and quickly slipped out of the cabin. Trip's attention returned to his sister. "It all stops tonight, Izzy."

She matched his defensive posture, propping her hands up on her shapely hips. "How much control do ya think ya have over this, Charlie?"

"Maybe Momma and Dad didn't spank ya enough when ya were little," Trip fumed. "Ya know they'd be so disappointed in ya, Izzy."

"Can ya really speak for 'em all?"

"'Bout as much as ya could when it came to their problems with me lovin' T'Pol!"

Isabella lifted her chin. "Least I have a valid reason for not likin' her. But Jonathan's yer friend."

"That doesn't mean I want him boinkin' my baby sister!" Trip shot back. Taking a moment to collect his breath, he shook his head. "Look...I gotta get to the bridge. Just so ya know, we're not done here. Got it?"

"Yer bein' completely unreasonable."

He started for the door. "And yer actin' like a bratty teenager."

Isabella's fists balled up. "Charlie! Yer such a jerk!! I hate ya!!"

Her last words went ignored as the cabin door slammed shut behind him. A scream tore through her throat; Isabella picked up the first thing she saw, a water glass and threw it across the room. It shattered into a thousand pieces across the metal floor.

****

"Nice of you to join us, Commander."

Trip replied to the Captain's greeting between clenched teeth. "I know." He glanced around the bridge. It had been quiet and empty only a half-hour earlier. Now it bustled with activity. Hoshi sat at her comm station, holding her ear piece up with one hand and punching buttons with the other. Malcolm had given up his chair and moved to the armory station where he was waiting, perched and ready, in case he got the chance to exercise his weapon skills. Travis at the helm, T'Pol at the science station. It was the usual scene presented whenever he got called up from Engineering.

"We have a situation. A communication was received and processed not too long ago," Jonathan filled him in. "Hoshi's rechecking the translation, but we're fairly sure it's a distress call."

He crossed over to Malcolm's station. "Where from?"

"The point of origin appears to be a small vessel approximately nine light years away from our present position," T'Pol replied.

"What can you do to get us there as fast as possible?" Jonathan asked his friend.

Trip scratched the back of his head. "With the upgrades we're in the middle of doin', best I can give ya is Warp Two. Maybe Warp Three if ya wanna risk the ship fallin' apart."

"Warp Two would put us there in twenty-nine hours, forty-five minutes."

Giving the Vulcan a grimace, Jonathan shook his head. "That's not good enough if there are people in trouble. Ensign, set a course. Warp Three."

Travis nodded. "Aye, aye sir."

"Captain." Hoshi removed the comm piece from her ear. "I've checked the translation. It *is* a distress call, from a cargo ship." Her delicate nose crinkled up. "And it's Ferengi, sir."

A moment passed. "Does this mean we can drop to Warp Two, Captain?" Malcolm asked.

In the three years since their initial encounter with the then anonymous greed mongers, Starfleet had managed to squeeze enough information out of the Vulcan High Council to identify the strange race to which the thieves had belonged, as well as put their language into the linguistic database.

Still, the idea of encountering them again, even though only Trip, T'Pol and Jonathan had actually seen them, was not a pleasant one. Intergalactic thieves had a strange way of making themselves very unwelcome by reputation.

"We're out here to explore and help as much as we can. That means helping anyone and everyone," Jonathan reminded his armory officer. There was a pause. "Drop down to 2.5, Travis." Upon catching T'Pol's raised eyebrow, he lifted one shoulder. "Don't want the ship to fall apart, after all." Her brow remained arched, even as she returned her attention to her station. Jonathan cleared his throat. "Let's get going."

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To Be Continued